Furniture Row announces revised Cup schedule

DENVER -- Furniture Row Racing announced Monday a revision to its 2009 Sprint Cup schedule.

The Colorado-based team has added one race to its original 12-race Cup schedule and has revised three of its upcoming race locations. The April 5 race at Texas Motor is the recent addition, bringing the current team’s schedule to 13 events.

The team is dropping the two road races -- Sonoma (June 21) and Watkins Glen (Aug. 9) -- plus the May 31st race at Dover. Those three races are being replaced with Darlington (May 9), Pocono (June 7) and Indianapolis (July 26).

The No. 78 Furniture Row team with driver Regan Smith entered two of the first four Cup races with Smith finishing 21st in the Daytona 500 and 20th in Las Vegas. The team’s next race will be at Texas.

“We all sat down and re-evaluated our schedule to see what suits our racing program the best,” said Joe Garone, Furniture Row Racing’s general manager. "Since we’re a sponsor-owned team we have the flexibility to move in and move out of race markets. We will most likely make additional changes as the season progresses.

“We’re happy about adding the race in Texas and hope that we will continue to make more additions, but that is dependent on the economic climate and attaining additional sponsorship. We’re looking for a partner and feel that we have plenty to offer a company from a marketing standpoint with Furniture Row’s more than 330 store locations in 31 states.”

Regarding the start of the 2009 season, Garone added, “We are happy with our two results at Daytona and Las Vegas though we had some issues in each race. The entire team is excited about Regan’s ability and we look forward to even better results in the future.”

To prepare for the Texas race next month, the No. 78 team has scheduled a two-day test session on Wednesday and Thursday at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Fountain, Colo.